She shrugged. “Eh bien? Our little Moscow theatrical company had come to grief.  New York—­cruel monster!—­did not want us. C’en est fait de nous!  Your Excellency met and recognized me as one you had once been presented to at a merry party at the Hermitage in our beloved city of churches.  Would I play the bon camarade in a little affair of the heart, or should I say une grande passion?  The honorarium offered was enormous for a poor ill-treated player whose very soul was ready to sing De Profundis.  Did it tempt her—­forlorn, downhearted—­”

She paused.  Close by, the spark brightened, dimmed—­brightened, dimmed!  Mr. Heatherbloom bent nearer.  “At any rate, she was honest enough to attempt to dissuade you—­in vain!  And then”—­her voice changed—­“since you willed it so, she yielded.  It sounded wild, impossible, the plan you broached.  Perhaps because it did seem so impossible it won over poor Sonia Turgeinov—­she who had thrown her cap over the windmills.  There would be excitement, fascination in playing such a thrilling part in real life.  Were you ever hungry, Prince?” She broke off.  “What an absurd question!  What is more to the point, tell me it was all well done—­the device, or excuse, of substituting another motor-car for her own, the mad flight far into the night, down the coast where save for that mishap—­But I met all difficulties, did I not?  And, believe me, it was not easy—­to keep your little American inamorata concealed until the Nevski could be repaired and meet us elsewhere than we had originally planned. Dieu merci! I exclaimed last night when the little spitfire was brought safely aboard.”  Mr. Heatherbloom breathed quickly.  Betty Dalrymple, then, had been with the woman in the big automobile—­

“Why don’t you praise me?” the woman went on.  “Tell me I well earned the douceur?  Although”—­her accents were faintly scoffing—­“I never dreamed you would not afterward be able to—­” Her words leaped into a new channel.  “What can the child want? Est-ce-qu’elle aime un autre?  That might explain—­”

An expletive smacking more of Montmartre than of the Boulevard Capucines, fell from the nobleman’s lips.  He brushed the ash fiercely from his cigar.  “It is not so—­it won’t explain anything,” he returned violently.  “Didn’t I once have it from her own lips that, at least, she was not—­” He stopped. “Mon Dieu! That contingency—­”

Suddenly she again laughed.  “Delicious!”

“What?”

“Nothing.  My own thoughts.  By the way, what has become of the man we picked up from the sail-boat?”

The prince made a gesture.  “He’s down below—­among the stokers.  Why do you ask?”

“It is natural, I suppose, to take a faint interest in a poor fisherman you’ve almost drowned.”

“Not I!” Brutally.

“No?” A smile, enigmatical, played around her lips.  “How droll!”